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The fabulous MINI Electric in “Fabulous Las Vegas”.

13.05.2020 Informação à Imprensa

Glitz and glamour, gambling and gigantic shows – everything is larger than life in the entertainment metropolis of Las Vegas. And that is precisely why the first all-electric model of the British premium brand cuts a particularly striking appearance in the desert city.

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The MINI Electric visit to Nevada was produced before the outbreak of COVID-19. MINI and all involved parties are aware of their social responsibility and advise agains

Glitz and glamour, gambling and gigantic shows – everything is larger
than life in the entertainment metropolis of Las Vegas. And that is
precisely why the first all-electric model of the British premium
brand cuts a particularly striking appearance in the desert city. The
small car only needs a modest footprint to park, it buzzes quietly
along the world-famous Las Vegas Strip and in the permanently
neon-soaked hotel and casino landscape it only needs precisely the
amount of electricity that is necessary for the driving fun that is so
typical of the marque.

Munich/Las Vegas. This is a city with a magic glow
where replicas of the Statue of Liberty, the Eiffel Tower in Paris,
Egyptian pyramids and Venetian canals form backdrops for spectacular
hotel and casino buildings. Elvis doubles welcome you on every street
corner, and Las Vegas itself can easily take on an otherworldly aspect
owing to its location in the middle of the Nevada Desert. The fact is
that the imitations of famous sights on Las Vegas Boulevard – familiar
to everybody simply as the “Strip” – attract more tourists every year
than each of the originals. And there have always been illusionists in
the show arenas like David Copperfield, Siegfried & Roy or Hans
Klok, who hold a magic attraction for public audiences. In the casino
and entertainment metropolis, everything is larger than life and more
spectacular than anywhere else. This also applies in the street. Where
super-long stretch limousines, exclusive sports cars and pick-ups with
muscular engines meld into everyday experiences, only a truly awesome
automobile is capable of generating the wow factor. For example, an
all-electric small car from the United Kingdom. And it’s a fact: In
Las Vegas, the new MINI Cooper SE (combined fuel consumption:
0.0 l/100 km; combined electricity consumption:
16.8 – 14.8 kWh/100 km; combined CO2 emissions: 0 g/km) is
a truly exotic machine with high emotional appeal.

Anybody buzzing down the “Strip” in the MINI Electric while
generating zero local emissions turns heads in astonishment and gets
lots of thumbs-ups. The city’s most famous boulevard is almost seven
kilometres long and charts its course from north to south. Lines of
hotels with sonorous names like “Venetian”, “Mirage”, “Flamingo”,
“Caesars Palace”, “Bellagio”, “MGM Grand”, “New York, New York” or
“Luxor” lead the way to the equally famous welcome sign with the
immortal words “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” to offer yet another
photo opportunity. When cruising down the “Strip”, the fabulous MINI
Cooper SE amazes passers-by with snappy but almost soundless bursts of
acceleration. The journey from one traffic light to the next
represents an ideal opportunity to make use of the two-stage brake
energy recovery. Depending on the volume of traffic, each of the two
toggle settings has its own distinctive appeal. If you toggle to
strong recuperation, the MINI Electric is aggressively decelerated as
soon as the driver releases the accelerator pedal. This mode channels
a particularly large amount of energy back into the high-voltage
battery. In the other mode, the car rolls to a stop at a leisurely
pace and with reduced braking action.

When night falls in Las Vegas, the facades, advertising hoardings,
direction signs and floodlights form a multicoloured, flashing and
dazzling ocean of neon tubes and LED modules. However, the city
council of Las Vegas is doing all it can to reduce the consumption of
resources. All public buildings now generate their electricity from
renewable sources. And charging stations for electric vehicles are
easy to find. The MINI Electric recharges its batteries so as to be
ready for the outing on the coming day.

“What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas”, is a famous saying among
visitors that promises discretion. But in the era of social-media
livestream, it’s pretty much impossible to stop the occasional
embarrassing fact being leaked to the outside world. More and more
tourists are also keen to explore the attractions in the environs of
the city. Just 30 kilometres away from the “Strip”, Red Rock Canyon at
sunrise presents a wonderful play of colours on the shimmering rock
formations clothed in a red glow.

Soon afterwards it gets really hot. If there happened to be some
shadow somewhere on the desert roads, the thermometer would be
indicating around 50 degrees Celsius there. Under the burning sun, the
temperature is even higher. Any mobile phone battery will soon run out
of juice when subjected to these conditions. By contrast, the
high-voltage battery of the new MINI Cooper SE remains “cool”. The
range is between 235 and 270 kilometres with a fully-charged battery,
and it only comes down very gradually. This is made possible by an
extremely effective all-in cooling system for the interior and the
high-voltage battery. Thanks to highly efficient heat-pump technology,
the cooling system runs like a dream into the bargain. It also permits
pre-conditioning of the interior. After going hiking at Red Rock
Canyon, the driver of the MINI Electric is in for a truly enviable
treat because a refreshingly pre-cooled car awaits the driver’s
return. The remote app for MINI Connected even allows the
pre-conditioning to be activated remotely – provided the all-important
smartphone has not lost its charge in the heat.

Another popular excursion takes visitors to the Hoover Dam located
around 50 kilometres to the south-east of Las Vegas. The Mike
O’Callaghan – Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge takes Highway 93 across the
Colorado River and the canyon it has carved out of the rocks,
providing a fascinating view of the monumental dam across the valley.
It blocks the river to Lake Mead and supplies Las Vegas with drinking
water. 17 turbines also harness the power of the water to generate
electricity. Powerful electromagnetic waves occur near the dam as a
side effect of the zero-emission energy generation. These waves
encourage the development engineers of the BMW Group to divert to the
Hoover Dam on their test drives through Death Valley with prototypes
of new models, in order to put the ruggedness of the electronic
vehicle systems through its paces. Tests like this have significantly
improved the electromagnetic shielding over recent decades. As a
consequence, the onboard electronics of the MINI Cooper SE remain
distinctly unimpressed during the trip over the dam, while the
occupants are once again unable to take their eyes off this man-made spectacle.